Auld Lang Syne
by TorontoBatFan
Summary: December 31st, 1983.  Owen and Abby have a quiet but fun evening preparing to welcome in 1984.


_Happy New Year's everyone. I thought I'd do a little one-shot story to let Owen and Abby celebrate New Year's Eve. The idea came to me yesterday and I put it together last night, when I got home from the party I attended, and today. I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable welcoming in of 2011._

_This is just a one-shot, the next big story will be forthcoming. :-D_

_I make a reference to a Stephen King novella in this story. Can anyone tell me what story it comes from? :-D BTW, any Batman fans out there who remember the original incarnation and backstory of the Jason Todd Robin? :-D _

_I do hope everyone enjoys this little one-shot. I thought it would be a fun bit of New Year's fluff._

_And awayyyyyy we go. :-)_

Auld Lang Syne

December 31st, 1983

A cold northern wind was blowing down along the Rockies, bringing with it snow and frigid temperatures. For the residents of western Montana, the end of 1983 was proving to be a cold and snowy one. As evening wore on, people began to arrive at New Year's Eve parties or, prompted by the cold and snow, opted to stay home and watch festivities on television.

All across North and South America, people were marking the advent of the New Year in various ways. In the depths of South America, a pale figure with aristocratic bearings had begun a journey north to the country of his birth…and re-birth. He planned to start looking for his niece in Virginia and track her from there. In a snowed-in GS&WM Railroad tool-and-signal shack nine miles outside of Tarker's Mills, Maine, a railroad flagman named Arnie Westrum heard an unearthly howling from outside, in the storm. It would be one of the last things he would ever hear.

Most people, though, were spending the night in exciting, festive, or at least peaceful ways. In an old stone ranch house ten miles outside of the town of Cold Creek two such residents had opted to spend New Year's Eve doing just that.

Owen and Abby sat on the living room couch, intently manipulating their ColecoVision controllers. Abby's face fell as her onscreen character was unable to leap over a barrel thrown down a ramp by an irate gorilla.

"Ah!" She muttered as she saw that Owen had beaten her by a decent margin that game. "I almost made it to that hammer to smash the barrels."

"Almost, but you didn't get it." Owen grinned at her. Abby just stuck her tongue out at him in retaliation.

Owen got up and walked over to the television, switching the main converter switch from game mode, back to television. The television was showing festivities in New York City, where Dick Clark's annual New Year's Eve special was well under way as New York City time was two hours ahead of Montana's. Seeing that there wasn't anything really special about the current entertainment and that the countdown was still well over two hours away, Owen flipped the channel to _Entertainment Tonight_. There, they were listing the critics' choices of the top films of 1983.

"I can't believe _Return of the Jedi_ isn't everyone's pick for best film." Abby said with a shake of her head at the television set."

"Yeah, they're all talking about _Terms of Endearment_, and _Tender Mercies_. Who would pick those over _Jedi_?"

"These people have no taste. It's the only possible explanation."

"Yeah, I mean it was the biggest film of the year. How could they not think it'll be the best at the Oscars?"

"I have no idea. Look at last year, when _E.T._ lost out to _Ghandi_. Abby said as she recalled her disgust that she and Owen felt over that, when they'd watched the telecast together in those days when they were newly arrived at the ranch.

Abby's diatribe was interrupted at the phone rang. It rang twice, then stopped. A few seconds later, it began ringing again. The two rings preceding had been the pre-arranged code that Oscar was on the other end of the line. Owen picked up the receiver. "Hi Grandpa, did you get to Wolf Creek alright?...That's good….Ok, if you stay over we'll be fine. Have a good time. Happy New Year." Owen held the receiver towards Abby.

"Happy New Year!" she called loudly so her voice could be heard. Owen put the phone back to his ear. "You have a fun night too, Grandpa. Bye!" Owen said as he hung up the phone.

"He's staying in Wolf Creek for the night?"

"Yeah, if the storm gets worse he's going to stay at his friend's place overnight."

"That's smart of him." Abby mused as she looked out the window. The snow was definitely coming down and being whipped by the wind. Neither of them wanted to see Oscar do something foolish like driving home in the storm when he had a friend with a pullout couch that he could spend the night on.

"Yeah, it's really coming down now, isn't it?"

"Hard to believe it was so calm at sundown." Abby said as she looked at the Polaroid picture that had been propped against the lamp on the end table. It was of her that had been taken earlier that evening, right after she got up.

The picture, which Owen had taken from atop the porch railing was an artfully posed shot of her. She was laying in the powdery snow, wearing only a thin white dress, making snow angels. Her face and hair were dusted with a thin, almost sugary, snow coating. Against the white background, her blond hair stood out in stark contrast and her pale skin seemed for more natural against the white snow. All in all, Owen, thought, she looked ethereally pretty. (Of course, Owen realized he was biased in that regard.) The picture looked really good too. He wished he could submit it to a photo contest. He was certain it would take a prize.

"You look so pretty there."

"You really think so?"

"Why do you always think you're not?"

"I don't know. I guess I haven't been around you long enough yet." Abby said with a warm expression on her face as she settled back against Owen.

"Well, give me time. I'll convince you."

"I think we'll have that time."

"Good." Owen said with a smile as he thought again about what it would be like to spend eternity with Abby.

Abby took a felt tipped pen from the table, uncapped it, and carefully wrote on the bottom frame of the picture, 'New Year's Eve, 1983'.

"You really have such beautiful handwriting, Abby." Owen said as he looked at the inscription she did.

"Thanks. It was something that was really emphasized when I was a child. You're getting a lot better though." Abby said. She'd been coaching him in his penmanship in the preceding months.

"I'm not as good as you are."

"Not yet. But you're getting there. Be thankful for the pens we have nowadays. When I was learning, I had to use a quill pen with an inkwell."

"What was that like?"

"Messy. There some things I miss from the past. But quill pens are not one of them. I like the fountain pens Grandpa has the best. They're classic, but easy to use. Ballpoints are alright, but not as elegant as a fountain pen."

Owen listened with genuine interest. Abby was often able to give him glimpses into the past and could bring facets of history to life for him. He wondered if he would ever look at things the same way when he had seen that much time go by.

Abby looked back out the window again. "It's really coming down. I wish it was packing snow. We could build a snow fort then."

"That might not be a good idea."

"Why not?"

"Well, Grandpa might have a hard time explaining to any neighbours who come by why a man his age, who's supposed to live alone, has built a snow fort in his yard."

"I didn't think of that." Abby said with a small look of admiration at Owen. He always seemed to be good of thinking of details like this. It was this attention to detail that had allowed them to escape detection during their flight from Los Alamos to Montana the previous March. Abby was skilled at surviving. She wouldn't have lived as long as she had if wasn't. However, she truly had never been one to think of details that would help avoid detection or suspicion they way Owen did. The two of them, together, really made a good team with their combination of strengths.

"I hope Grandpa has a good time at the party tonight."

"He says he does every year. Where's it being held again?"

"It's at the American Legion Hall in Wolf Creek. He said that he has a friend from the VFW who lives pretty close to it, that he would spend the night with if the storm got too bad, or if he enjoyed himself a little too much."

"He thought that might happen?"

"You know he doesn't really drink. I think that when he goes to the Lawton's house he'll have a beer, but that's about it. New Year's Eve is pretty much the only time he drinks a lot."

"For his sake, I hope he doesn't go overboard. It's not fun afterwards."

"Yeah, I know. My mom was in bad shape some mornings when she was really into the wine the night before." Owen said sadly as a dark memory came to the fore. "I would make her some coffee and get her some Anacin."

"Did that work?" Abby asked gently as she held his hand, as if to reassure Owen that he was past those unhappy days.

"Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't. I think it depended on how much she ate before and how much wine she had. On weekend mornings, a lot of times she would fall asleep on the couch with a cold cloth on her forehead. I'd go out into the courtyard or down to the basement room. I'd stay there until I thought she was feeling better enough for me to come back."

"I'm sorry Owen. It must have been really bad for you. I know hangovers aren't a lot of fun. I know from experience."

"Huh? You've had a hangover?"

"Oh, uh, yeah; I have."

"How'd that happen?"

"Um, well, it's kind of a funny story. It was in the 1920's, back when Prohibition was going on."

"When the government banned all liquor from the country, or tried to?" Owen asked. He'd been reading a book on the Prohibition Era for one of his correspondence courses.

"Tried to, is the operative word. Well, I found myself down in the southern part of the Appalachian Mountains. I'm not sure if it was in Tennessee or Georgia. I know I was around the state line, but not I'm certain what side I was on. At any rate, one night I was making my way through the woods. I was hungry, but I wasn't desperate yet. I was thinking of finding one of those prison camps that they had a lot of back then, where they worked chain gangs out of. Sometimes escapes happened…and I didn't let them get far. I hate to think of the things I did back then, but I had to live."

"It's alright Abby. You were saying that it was a funny story?"

"Yeah…So, I was walking through the woods and I smell wood smoke and something…cooking. I decided to see what it was. I followed the smell and I saw a fire going on a clearing. I went in a lot closer and I saw that there was a still set up for making moonshine, with a man working at it. I think I stepped on a twig or something, because I made a noise. The man jumped up and grabbed a rifle. Before I could think to fly out of there, he shot me."

"What?"

"He shot me. He hit me right in my side. The bullet went right through me and, of course, it didn't hurt or anything. I heard him yell out curses at the 'damned revenuers'. Then, I thought he hadn't seen me clearly and thought I was a prohibition agent, or something. I stepped out a little so he could see that I wasn't. And…he shot me again."

"What was wrong with him?"

"I have no clue. I mean, I clearly wasn't a prohibition agent. I was a twelve year old girl in an old dress and bare feet. I probably looked like the daughter of any type of mountaineer or farm family in the area. But, he just shot me again. He grumbled something about nobody was going to tell anyone where his still was. So, that made me mad. The first time, if he mistook me for an animal or even a government agent, I would let it go. But that time, he saw that I was a young girl, and he would have murdered me if I had been a normal girl."

"What happened then?" Owen asked, although he already had a fairly good idea at the outcome.

"He didn't get a chance to shoot a third time. I…I fed off of him. And he was a big man too. He had to have been more than 300 pounds. He looked like the stereotype of the backwoods hillbilly. And, he wasn't all clean-cut and neat like Bo and Luke Duke either. And if you thought I smelled funny when we first met, you should have gotten a whiff of him. I don't think he was big into soap. Well, I snapped his neck when I was done and put out the fire he was using for the still. I remember I started to feel strange. I mean, I felt really, REALLY strange. I felt dizzy and lightheaded. I'd just fed off of someone and that always made me feel horrible, but for some reason I felt like giggling. I mean, I was over a hundred and seventy years old back then, and I'd never felt that strange before. I staggered –and I mean, I was literally staggering- away from the clearing. As I left, I saw about four or five big jugs that he must have used to put his moonshine in. All of them were lying on the ground empty. I guess he must have been drinking a lot of the product he was brewing. I made it back to the cave I was using for shelter, and I don't remember anything else. I woke up the next night, at least I think it was only one night later, with the worst headache I'd ever had and it felt like any sound was like a canon going off. I think that guy would have caused a breathalyzer machine to explode. If he'd breathed on the fire he was using, he'd have blown the both of us up." Abby said with a shake to her head.

"Wow."

"Yeah, that about sums it up, I guess."

"I guess I shouldn't have gotten a jug of moonshine for midnight."

"Do you want me in your bed anytime in 1984, or not?" Abby asked with an arched eyebrow. Owen laughed at that and pulled her into an embrace and drew her into a long kiss.

"1983," Owen said when the kiss broke "It was a year I'll never forget."

"I know what you mean."

"Let's see, what happened this year. We got _The A-Team_. Bo and Luke Duke came back and they got rid of Coy and Vance. We found out Luke and Leia are brother and sister."

"Don't forget that Batman got a new Robin." Abby said with a mischievous grin as she awaited Owen's reaction.

"Gah! How could they come up with a character as lame as Jason Todd…and then try to make him the new Robin? He's just a Dick Grayson clone –he's a circus acrobat whose parents were murdered. He even has the twin curls of hair."

"Why do you still read the comics then?"

"I'm hoping they'll kill him off. Maybe the Joker could do it."

"Oh please, Robin getting killed by the Joker? That is never going to happen."

"I can hope." Grumbled Owen, "Now what else happened this year? Let me think…Oh yeah. I met you. That goes down as the single best thing about 1983 for me."

"Well, meeting you is definitely the best thing that happened to me in 1983." Abby said as she unconsciously took one of his hands and placed it on her cheek. "I didn't live before I met you. I existed. There was nothing that really gave me any sort of pleasure, or enjoyment, or any real connection to the idea of living."

"I was living, I guess, a half-life. I just went about whatever and just tried to avoid more bad things happening. Nothing good really happened until I met you."

Abby leaned in and gave him a kiss. As the kiss broke, Owen sniffed Abby's long, soft hair. "Your hair smells so nice with that new shampoo from your stocking."

"Oh, I love that. I'll have to get a new bottle when that one runs out. All the shower stuff is so good."

"I thought you'd like the brush and lotion for your feet."

"Oh, those are really good. I didn't realize how much of a beating my feet took until then."

"I figured." Owen said as he reached over and rubbed the sole of her right foot. Abby giggled as he did so.

"So what do you think 1984 is going to be like?" Abby asked between giggles.

"I don't know. There's going to be a new Indiana Jones movie. That's for sure."

"Oh, we are so going to see that. I'm just dreading all the George Orwell jokes we're going to have to endure this year."

"What?"

"I'll explain later." Abby sighed, as she realized that she had a ways to go with introducing Owen to more works of literature.

Owen turned his attention back to the television set.

"Abby, look, they're counting down in Times Square." Abby looked up at the television set and saw that Dick Clark was leading the countdown to midnight, Eastern Standard Time. Despite the knowledge that 1984 would not begin for them for another two hours, Owen and Abby intently watched the glowing ball drop. As the count reached zero, all of New York City seemed to cheer and begin a rollicking chorus of "Auld Lang Syne". Abby and Owen turned to each other.

"Happy New Year."

"Happy New Year." Abby answered as they kissed. Unlike most midnight celebrations, the kiss did not just end with a single quick kiss. Owen pulled her in close and squeezed her tight. Abby responded in kind. They fell back on the sofa, locked in their tight embrace. After several minutes, they were able to talk again.

"Abby, um, what do you want to do for the next two hours until it's midnight here?" Owen asked with a suggestive look.

"Hmmm, that's a tough one." Abby said with a thoughtful look on her face. Then she grinned playfully at Owen and simultaneously lifted his _Star Wars _sweatshirt and underlying t-shirt off his body. Owen smiled at her as she did that.

"I was hoping that's what you'd want to do." He said to her. He reached down and raised her own _Knight Rider_ sweatshirt off her torso, leaving her completely topless.

"If you'd asked before, we could have started earlier." Abby giggled as she undid Owen's jeans and pulled them off of him, followed by his underwear. She tugged off his socks at the same time she pulled his pants off his legs.

"I didn't want to be pushy. I thought girls liked it when guys played hard to get." Owen smiled as he removed Abby's own jeans and underwear and pulled them down and off her legs.

"I really hope, for your sake, that's not more advice from that idiot Tommy." Abby said with mock seriousness as she threw their discarded clothing onto the floor so the couch would be clear for what they wanted to do.

"Oh, uh, ah, hah, uh noooo. That wasn't advice from Tommy." Owen said with a forced attempt to be cool that he knew Abby was seeing through.

"Good. We know what happens when we listen to Tommy." Abby said with a laugh as she leaned back on the couch and pulled Owen down on top of her. Owen looked down at Abby's face just inches below his own. His eyes took on a look of softness mixed with intensity.

"I love you so much, Abby."

"I love you too. I think 1984 is going to be a very, very special year for us too." Abby said with a smile as they began to make love and await their own countdown to midnight.


End file.
